Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/611

In the first bed on the left as you come into the ward was a red-haired trooper of five-and-twenty, with a cradle to keep the clothes off his wounded leg.

"Yes, Sir," he said to my greeting; "knee-cap for me, an' rather a mess of it. I haven't quite decided whether I'll have the leg off, or just go about with a stiff 'un. I'm leavin' that for the doctor. It's his funeral, after all, ain't it?"

"I hope it won't be a case of amputation," I said. Then, waving my arm vaguely, "And what is it like out there?"

"Firs'-rate, Sir! Firs'-rate, if it wasn' for those bloomin' allymets what they deals out for matches. When I got this bit o' shell in the knee it hurt me for a bit, but I soon got picked up, an' I was all right enough till the Red Cross chap says, 'A smoke?' 'Par demmy,' says I, knowin' a bit o' the lenguage. So what does he do but give me one o' them corporals, an' lights a sulphur allymet. That all but put my little light out, I'm tellin' yer. But I didn' let on, o' course, an' as soon as I got down to the Base Hospital I could get civilised wax vestas, so that was all right. But them allymets—they must ha' 'sphinxiated hundreds of our pore fellers, I give yer my word!"

I dispensed cigarettes of the peculiar kind that Tommy seems to love best, produced an illustrated paper, and after shaking hands went along to the next cot.

"Well," I said, "and how are you?"

"Oh, fair to middlin'. I was in luck's way right up to Noove Chapel, but after that the on'y jam we ever got was plum, an' you can get pretty tired o' plum jam if you 'ave enough of it, even without a bullet through the blessed 'ip."

"War's war," I remarked limply.

"That's right enough, Sir. But jam's jam, an' if Lord Kitchener knew the old reg'ment was restricted to plum jam—well, there'd be somebody's number up at daylight to-morrow, I bet! Some of the 'Ighland reg'ments was gettin' black currant, an' strawberry, an' damson, whereas we was pinned down to plum all the while. Mind, Sir, I don' mean' t' grouse, but 'ow anybody with any pertence to knowledge o' strategy an' ta'tics can expec' a man to fight 'is ugliest on plum jam—well, it can't be done, Sir! Otherwise you might say that this 'ere war is bein' conducted in a very businesslike fashion, an' K. can't look to everything 'imself, it's on'y fair to admit."

The next man's face was swathed in bandages. Only his eyes could be seen as I approached him, but there was an opening through which he could speak, though thickly.

"Oh, I'm all right, Sir!" he said. "I'm as right as rain now, though I'd ha' chosen some other kind o'